


Hastings and Japp's Last case

by rainbowl



Category: Poirot - Agatha Christie
Genre: I wrote it in french then I translated it, it's based on the books not the tv show, spoilers for curtain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:06:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21781915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowl/pseuds/rainbowl
Summary: Some time after publishing the last case of Hercule Poirot, Arthur Hastings has a late visit.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Hastings and Japp's Last case

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Hastings and Japp's Last Case](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21719281) by [rainbowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowl/pseuds/rainbowl). 



> heeeeeeeey, I'm french, so my english isn't...... that good, sorry for my mistakes.  
> It's based on the books, not on the tv show, so :  
> \- Japp isn't married  
> \- Hastings and Japp don't get along  
> Obviously it's a HUUUGE spoiler for Curtain!  
> In my own chronology, Poirot died in 1954 : he was eighty years old or more. The story takes time around this date, Hastings is sixty something, Japp is seventy something.

The publication of the last book of Arthur Hastings caused quite a stir. In the following days, he received a lot of request for an interview: journalists wanted to know more about the ‘tragic fate of Hercule Poirot’, as they said. But Hastings thought he told everything they needed to know in his book, and he refused.  
It was harder to ignore the calls from Poirot’s old acquaintances, who were surprised and even shocked by his last adventure. But he had nothing to say to them, and he couldn’t answer to their questions, their doubts, their sadness. No one was sadder than him, he was sure of it, and he was selfishly mourning alone. Not only he was grieving the death of his friend, but also what he thought he knew about him. He even ignored the phone calls of Ariadne Oliver, who used to be close to the detective. It was cruel, and he promised himself to come back to her later, when he would have digested Poirot’s actions.  
Hastings didn’t have the nerves to hear others to dwell on what he still found hard to accept: that his life-long friend, who he trusted completely, had committed a murder, before killing himself. He didn’t resent him, he didn’t blame him; but it broke something in him. Hercule Poirot, until his death, remained a mystery.  
He could ignore the phone and throw away the letters he was receiving, only to stay at home brooding. But he didn’t expect that one evening, late at night, someone would knock at his door.  
He opened apprehensively, expecting a journalist cheekier than others. But on the porch was an elderly man with grey hairs and a cold face, who he didn’t recognize right away.  
"Japp?"  
He didn’t see him for… twenty years at least. Poirot told him about Japp from time to time, about the cases they both resolved in Hastings’s absence. He knew he had a promotion a long time ago and his work with Poirot has been successful.  
Hastings supposed it was logical to see him at his door.  
"Hastings."  
Japp didn’t seem delighted to see him, and it was mutual. Hastings contemplated slamming the door in his face – it was late after all, but he ended up moving off to let him in.  
"Come in."  
Hastings forced himself to smile at his guest, despite the uneasy tension, while they were walking toward the living room.  
"It has been a while – I guess you’re…  
\- Retired, yes. I tend my garden."  
The Japp he used to know was more talkative and friendlier. Hastings offered him a tea, a whisky and other drinks, all refused by the former policeman. There was a silence: Japp didn’t seem to know where to start. Hastings gave up all desire to be social and he decided to be direct:  
"What do you want from me?  
\- Your book. About Poirot and the way he...'  
Japp suddenly stopped, not daring saying the word. Hastings started to give him the same answer he gave to everyone:  
"I understand your shock. I didn’t believe it myself, and I confess I’m still struggling to accept it. I assure you, it’s the plain truth and…  
\- You should have warned me!"  
The former inspector didn’t hold back anymore, and his voice raised. It annoyed Hastings: how did Japp dare to get angry at him?  
"Warning you?  
\- First, you didn’t tell me he was dead – I learnt it in the newspaper."  
Again, he stopped, confused. Hastings was struck by the weariness in his eyes, a tortured weariness, one who prevents you from sleeping because you’re asking yourself too many questions: the one haunting Hastings since Hercule Poirot’s last letter.  
Japp resumed slower, lost in his thoughts:  
"I went to see it, you know. His grave. I couldn’t believe it. His first investigation in England, and that’s where he ended up. And I was here too, for his first case. But not when he…  
He swore.  
"I learnt it in the newspaper, Hastings! The newspaper! I knew him for... more than forty years. And I don’t attend his funerals.  
\- I...  
\- Then, I learnt in your book that he…”  
His anger and his sadness prevented him to finish his sentences. Hastings intervened to defend himself:  
"I only learnt the truth recently.  
\- But you could have told me before the publication!  
\- For what reason?  
\- Because I was one of his closest friends for all these years!"  
That was too much: Hastings got mad too:  
"Poirot chose me as the tenant of his memory, of the last image he wanted to be shared of him. Me, not you. So, your misplaced jealousy, you can keep it and…  
\- Jealousy? What jealousy?  
Japp looked sincerely surprised. Hastings was taken aback.  
"Well, you’re jealous because you weren’t at his sides and… uh.”  
Now that he was saying it out loud, it didn’t sound right.  
"I’m not jealous, I am appalled that your... old hostility toward me, and well, let’s be honest, your jealousy, prevented you to warn me.  
\- Me, jealous?  
It was Hastings’s turn to be outraged by this accusation, but he was less convincing: Japp threw him an exasperated look.  
"Yes, jealous of me, of all people daring to be sad when they learnt the death of Hercule Poirot, of all people who might not be his best friend, but who had loved him anyway."  
Speaking this way, his ire was growing, and while he was getting angry again, Hastings was watching him, dumbfounded.  
"Did you know they came to me, the friends of the great Hercule Poirot, when they realized you wouldn’t answer, when you rejected them with politeness? Ariadne Oliver, Felicity Lemon, colonel Race – I didn’t even know them! And you neither. But they know us, thanks to your books, thanks to Poirot. But I couldn’t tell them anything, because I didn’t know anything...”  
Gradually, his voice declined until it became a whisper. Both of them stood in silence for a few minutes, lost in their thoughts. Then Hastings said:  
"Let’s sit down.”  
Japp didn’t object. While they were sitting in two armchairs, Hastings took a deep breath:  
"I am sorry, truly sorry. I didn’t realize, I was... sure that nobody could understand me. Poirot always told me I was short-sighted, and now that he can’t remind me anymore, I…”  
He almost choked up. He lowered his head to pull himself together. When he raised it again, Japp was watching him with sympathy. Feeling supported, Hastings continued:  
"That’s not an excuse. I should have... done better. Poirot deserves it. And that’s true, I let ancient grudges to get the better of me.”  
He stopped.  
"Why?  
\- Why what?  
\- Why couldn’t we get along?"  
Japp shrugged.  
"That’s how it is."  
That question didn’t seem to concern him. Hastings thought he detected a bit of fatalism.  
"You and I, we aren’t from the same world. I’m – I was a cop, You’re..."  
Japp moved his dead upward.  
"...something else.  
\- I am not a Lord."  
Japp only watched him in silence. Hastings eventually admitted:  
"But you’re right. We didn’t understand each other. But Poirot was in between. Between us."  
Japp nodded:  
"I knew him when he was still a policeman, you know."  
Poirot, always impeccably dressed, a policeman… Hastings smiled.  
"I know. I met him retired.  
\- That was his main difference with the other upper-class privates, who think they know everything. He had been on the field. He had held a gun. Il had been trained.  
\- He came from a poor family: he told me once, with some embarrassment. But in England, he became something else. He knew duchesses, countesses and princes. He loved aristocracy a lot.”  
Poirot’s coquetry, brushing his moustache when he was meeting a prominent personality…  
"You’ve always been part of this world, and I’ve always belonged to mine. But Poirot knew both."  
Japp smiled too.  
"I don’t know if I could’ve worked with him otherwise."  
They were both silent again, but it was quieter now. Hastings said, wondering:  
"What did you think when you read my book?"  
The need for loneliness was fading; he was curious now to know the personal opinion of someone who knew Poirot too.  
Japp tensed a bit:  
"I don’t know what to think.  
\- Me neither.  
\- Yourself you almost… did it."  
Hastings shivered.  
"How horrible.  
\- It’s still hard to believe that one man could have such a strong hold on you, on this guest hotel, on Poirot…  
\- Poirot wasn’t under his influence!”  
Japp blinked:  
"He ended up committing a murder, didn’t he? That was what Norton wanted."  
Hastings countered:  
"It was only to stop him!  
\- The result is the same. Hercule Poirot committed a murder."  
Japp himself seemed surprised to say this sentence, so antithetical to everything he knew about the great detective.  
"I told him once he would do it one day! I told him I couldn’t wait to see that! What a fool!  
\- You couldn’t know. Poirot didn’t do it for... That was different from other crimes.  
\- Really? He wasn’t that sure, if I believe his last letter in your book."  
Hastings wanted to protest, but he stopped. Japp wasn’t wrong.  
"You think Poirot fell in his trap?  
\- We will never know. A murder is a murder, Hastings, and Poirot knew that."  
Hastings sank into his chair, overwhelmed:  
"His ego, always his ego... If he had told me...  
\- What could we have answered? He was right: from a legal point of view, nothing could be done.”  
Hastings shook his head:  
"But why him? Why should he had to be the one betraying all his principles to defend the innocent? He always told me I was too much of a romantic, but look what he did! That’s what heroes do. When did you see him last?  
If Japp was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it.  
"Six months before his death. I went to see him, when he was back from Egypt. He told me about these crimes, without laying out his theory. I told him he was wrong, that all these murders weren’t linked, because what would have been the motive? At that time, he laughed, and he said something like ‘ah, you are right, ce pauvre vieux Poirot, he sees the crime everywhere.’ If only I had listened…”  
Japp shook his head, saddened.  
"He told me he wanted to go back to Styles, to rest. I even proposed to visit him, one day.”  
The former inspector suddenly stood, and he turned around to hide his emotion. Hastings looked elsewhere. When he was again in front of him, Hastings asked him:  
"Didn’t you think he looked lonely?  
\- Yes... he solved his last cases alone. We worked together for the last time on a drug case in a nightclub. But after that…  
\- After, he was alone. Maybe on purpose. I wondered if he was happy these last years. It might explain a lot.”  
Hastings added bitterly:  
"And I was in South America.  
\- And I was at Scotland Yard! And then I retired. I saw him from time to time but… yes, he was looking for loneliness.  
\- Until the end he stayed a mystery.”  
Japp nodded. He glanced at his watch.  
"It’s late. I should go.  
\- Yes, don’t make..."  
… them wait? Her wait? Hastings stopped, unable to end his sentence. He knew nothing about the life of the former policeman.  
A shadow crossed Japp’s eyes.  
“Nobody is waiting for me.”  
He smiled.  
"I never got married. I worked all my life, and I’ve never found the time."  
He quickly changed the subject, reluctant to talk about himself.  
"And you, and that Elizabeth?”  
Hastings blushed slightly to Japp’s teasing smile.  
"She’s... fine. I see her sometimes. It’s good to spend time with someone who didn’t know Poirot. It’s refreshing.”  
\- I understand."  
Hastings stood to escort him to the door. On his doorstep, he felt guilty. What would Poirot have wanted?  
"Come to see me, sometimes. I would love that."  
Yes, that’s what Poirot would have done.  
In any case, Japp seemed to love that too.

**Author's Note:**

> While writing it, I realized Hastings here was a lot like Pearl in Steven Universe : "I was the only one to know Rose! None of you had what we had!"  
> My blog btw : girafeduvexin on tumblr!  
> Love you.


End file.
